iDVD = terrible HD quality!

Bengt, I've REALLY appreciated your thorough notes on iMovieHD/iDVD tricks. I have just finished making a movie in iMovieHD (because it's the one I was most familiar with and I was on a deadline).

I suffered all the weird bugs (sound glitches in transitions, chapters getting messed up in iDVD if you make a change to the underlying iMovie etc) and now have a DVD.

BUT - when I play it on my widescreen TV, I experience what so many here have suffered:

a) The quality is TERRIBLE - video and stills (except for stills rendered with Ken Burns in iMovie as the Missing Manual talks about -who knew?) - no better than when I shot my first DVD using 320x240. YET I shot this sucker at 1080p/60fps AVCHD!!!!!! (I know iMovie only handles 30fps but STILL, surely it should be better than this!). FYI I took the .MTS files and re-wrapped them as .mov so iMovie would handle it - no degradation.

b) The titles are cut off, at the bottom, and at the sides, despite being OK on the Mac - even in widescreen! Even checking that Safe area and Standard crop zone box!

The titles I can redo. The chapter menus I can live without. The photos I can make lame excuses for. How can I improve the quality of the moving part - the video? The movie is 20 mins plus extras, the total DVD is 70 mins according to Project Info.

I've tried:

- exporting iMovieHD to iDVD via Share - that you don't recommend

- importing iMovieHD project to iDVD - which should technically be the same

- exporting iMovie Full Quality .dv file and adding it to iDVD

- exporting iMovie Apple Inermediate Codec file, which produced video that froze after 2 mins while the audio played the full 20 mins. Same with H.267 - literally stopped part way.

- using Handbrake to reverse engineer a DVD .img that I finally got to be glitch-free, to get a .m4v and adding that to iDVD

- making disc imagesin Best Performance (2.5 hours), High Quality and Pro Quality (4.5 hours) - results EXACTLY THE SAME - bad

- Plenty of space, deleting .plist files, restarting not letting computer sleep, etc etc all the precautions.

I can live with the video not being as great as I want, but there's got to be a way to improve the ripply fuzziness of the video - DVDs are meant to be watched on TV, otherwise we'd all just watch YouTube!

So since my deadline to send it off to the duping house is tomorrow, is there any one last thing I should try?

I guess my menus are all set up iDVD, so if there's another way to try exporting a final version of my iMovie into it, I'm all ears.

When should the de-interlace box be checked? I think it already was checked! Your knowledge suggests you've suffered (that word again!) everything I have and more!

Vielen Dank!

PS - I am confused - which iDVD is the latest version? I keep reading conflicting data - iDVD7, Version 7.1.2 which I read is the latest, but people are talking about iDVD 11 etc - I thought iDVD is being discontinued... left as is...

I really wish that I had a Magic wand that could put things right.

• Yes material used matters - and should be converted right first then feed into iMovie

(so feeding it 1920x1080 60p - usually give a very poor result (as far as I know - Have no such Camera))

• If one use "Share to iDVD" then one get's a "bad" rendered movie over to iDVD - BUT in my experience the original movie in iMovie is also HARMED - many use to contradict it - Happy for them - My is HARMED. and need to be re-done especially photos needs to be RE-Imported NEW (old ones is harmed)

• iDVD - in the iLife'11 box there is an iDVD and this is often referred to as iDVD'11 but it is v.7.1.2 after Software update.

Yours Bengt W

Ok. Bengt, it's 3am. Just spent 3 hours fixing bits of audio that got completely rearranged in iMovie. They kept being shuffled as if by unseen hands. An audio file kept being moved to the start of the movie and I have no idea why. That Lock Audio only seems to work *sort of*

So now, I have one last shot at trying to import a better 20-min movie file into iDVD.

What shall I try? How about you spin the barrel, pull out a codec and I'll give it a whirl.

ProRes? ProRes HQ? .dv? Give me your suggested parameters (interlaced?) and see what comes up smokin' in 4 hours. Then, it will be a 4.5 hour burn at Professional Quality.

It's my last shot! Goal: to have a less embarrassingly poor DVD that donors can plug in their TV.

IN case you're interested here's the 90 sec trailer (and bah! I forgot to hit widescreen)

http://vimeo.com/34936378

Thank you...

Did You make this in iMovie HD6 (not iM'08 to 11) - then

• Close iMovie

• Find Your movie project (icon with a balck Star on it)

I use to store it on DeskTop to be easy to find.

• Start iDVD

• From Within iDVD Import it or just drag and drop the movie icon into iDVD Menu window (but NOT into a drop Zone ! )

This gives me best result possibly - I also

• use Pro Quality encoding

• Verbatim DVD-R disks

• set Burn Speed to x4 or less (Important)

• see to that my Start-Up hard disk have 25Gb free space or more !

• Save as a DiskImage - to test that all's OK

• Burn from this image or from iDVD

Great movie from Peru - Love to go there and meet those nice kids a day.

Yours Bengt W

Hey Bengt,

Yes, using iMovieHD and iDVD7.1.2 - I did precisely what you said - except I made a disk image and am looking at it on the Mac first, then burning and checking on the TV. It seems no better - and I notice the slideshows are poor as well - even on the Mac.

1. A thought - should I be "deleting encoded assets" before the 4.5 hour process of encoding? I've been using the same iDVD project and just deleting and adding stuff with each try - is it re-encoding already encoded data or only doing it when it detects it hasn't done that piece yet?

2. Is it better to create a slideshow in iPhoto, export and import it to iDVD?

3. What if I make a QT ProRes export, maybe even a .dv export of the movie, and try dropping that in to the iDVD project to compare - even though no chapter markers - is it worth it? I google "best format file format for iDVD" and get conflicting answers.

4. I burn using Disk Utility at a low speed - good enough? Would Toast give a better result? I have the feeling that if the .img file isn't great to start with, the burning isn't going to help. Really appreciate your help!

OK Now You are seriously close to expose where my little know how reach a bitter end.

Very good and serious questions but I can only try and may be not good enough to share my thoughts.

1. A thought - should I be "deleting encoded assets" before the 4.5 hour process of encoding? I've been using the same iDVD project and just deleting and adding stuff with each try - is it re-encoding already encoded data or only doing it when it detects it hasn't done that piece yet?

I always - do and recommend - Start a Brand New iDVD project - never try re-using one that fails.

2. Is it better to create a slideshow in iPhoto, export and import it to iDVD?

Have no idea - as I does this in a totally different way - I either

• in FinalCut assemble my SlideShow and by this can keep 100% control

• or I use FotoMagico™ from my Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro bundle

Result very good on DVD or on DVD with BD-encoding (Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro bundle incl BD-component)

3. What if I make a QT ProRes export, maybe even a .dv export of the movie, and try dropping that in to the iDVD project to compare - even though no chapter markers - is it worth it? I google "best format file format for iDVD" and get conflicting answers.

As I understands it - making several conversions from a format iDVD can use as is - can't enhance the final result but ought to bring in more and more calculation artifacts. (BUT This is mere a GUESS). I do as previously described.

4. I burn using Disk Utility at a low speed - good enough? Would Toast give a better result? I have the feeling that if the .img file isn't great to start with, the burning isn't going to help. Really appreciate your help!

a. I can't see that Toast makes anything better than iDVD - it has other qualities.

b. Feeling of a bad .img file - I have the same - as in Computers childhood there was a phrase GIGO. Garbage In - Garbage Out. Very very few programs/applications can do magic and make anything better then was applied.

Yours out in the Guessing and speculating jungle: Bengt W

OK, here's what I've ascertained:

Short answer: buy better movie & DVD authoring tools (DVD Studio Pro, FCP, the things you mention etc etc ) or get someone to do it for you. My plan was to make clean exports of the movie and iPhoto slideshow and send it out to a professional DVD authoring place to meet the deadline. BUT

1. Exporting iMovieHD to Full Quality, ProRes and Apple Intermediate Codec all produced a glitchy file ranging from 900 to 17gb in size. The 17gb FULL QUALITY version had audio glitches, the other files had audio AND video glitches. So much for using it as a "source." The glitches always appear in the same place. Haven't the time to go down the list and find one - the process takes hours!

2.. Since I can't even get a clean file out of iMovie (only clean when it goes through iDVD - maybe it's designed to lock you in!), then there's no point trying to export it to Toast or anywhere else. I can't even export the iMovieHD file to iMovie11 or FCPX to see if I can at least get something without a glitch.

So there. I'm stuck with a movie made in iMovieHD and iDVD, free of glitches except for bad quality - the ultimate glitch of all.

Onwards. And thank you!

Is iMovie 6 on the iLife 09 suite and if so is the 06 iMovie compatable with Lion?

Thanks

iMovie HD6 is part of iLife 6 - not in iLife09 suite.

Can only be bought as second hand - but can also be on a DVD that came with any older Macs of Yours.

Yours Bengt W

Hi All,

I just found this discussion today after I spent the best part of a week trying to work out my own problems with getting HD video down sampled nicley to DVD via iMovie and iDVD.

My discovery is that there is a glitch in the Quicktime conversion process used by the "Share" option in iMovie.

My explanation and more info is on on my blog: http://theflasher.eu/?p=1025

The solution that works for me is: Don't use the "Share" feature in iMovie, instead export your HD movie using Apple Intermediate Codec from iMovie then drop it into iDVD manually and let iDVD do its thing.

I did some testing last night using iMovie 11 and iDVD 7.1.2 and was able to get a really good quality HD, there are no jagged or pixelated images and audio is very good as well. All the chapters, title, everything that I created in iMovie was shown perfectly in the DVD. I tested the result on HD TV and very satisfied. This is what I did:

• create your iMovie project and then do export movie. My movie project is about 74 minutes long and I selected 1080p option for the export. Do not do "Share to iDVD". Once the process is done you will notice there is HD 1080p note besides your project name.
• then open iDVD and create a new iDVD project as if you start from scratch.
• import your iMovie into iDVD then click burn.

Lots of people saying that iMovie HD (ver. 6.x) is better and I am going to try with that version next and compare the result. But my initial testing with iMovie 11 and iDVD 7.1.2 was quite surprisingly good so far.

I am using a Panasonic camcorder that records in 1080p 60fps and I was having difficulties as described here, producing lousy DVDs from pristine HD video.

My solution is to use software called CLIPWRAP (Google it). With CLIPWRAP I just import the 1080p 60 video, select the AIC dropdown setting and convert said video to MOV files. Then I import these MOV files into iMovie 11 which iMovie 11 accepts with no complaint (takes some time). The result is editable HD in iMovie 11. THEN, I import the result from iMovie editing into Toast Titanium 11 which preserves the 1080p 60 and burns it to either a normal DVD or a Blu-Ray DVD.

Note that the resultant disc will only play on a Blu-Ray capable player since to my knowledge regular DVD players cannot play HD video. I hope that this helps.

iMovie 6 HD and iMovie 11 are completely different apps, while iMovie 6 HD imported without quality loss the dv footage, iMovie 11 does not do the same, actually since version imovie 8 that interlaced footage in iMovie only imports half the frames, and even if you imnport your movies in other formats when exporting from iMovie 11 the rendering is limited by Apple to 8 bits color, that didn't happened on iMovie 6, that's why you will get bad image quality on iDVD, or iMovie export, mostly with color banding in dark scenes and blurred video in general. Apple did this to sell finacl cut express back then and now to sell imovie pro (Final Cut Pro X). I never though Apple would cripple their own users!

iMovie 6 HD and iMovie 11 are completely different apps, while iMovie 6 HD imported without quality loss the dv footage, iMovie 11 does not do the same, actually since version imovie 8 that interlaced footage in iMovie only imports half the frames, and even if you imnport your movies in other formats when exporting from iMovie 11 the rendering is limited by Apple to 8 bits color, that didn't happened on iMovie 6, that's why you will get bad image quality on iDVD, or iMovie export, mostly with color banding in dark scenes and blurred video in general. Apple did this to sell finacl cut express back then and now to sell imovie pro (Final Cut Pro X). I never though Apple would cripple their own users!